History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c10.s2.2

c10.s2.2

Thus in Mahābodhi Jātaka¹ King Brahmadatta of Benares has five heretical councillors, who are respectively an ahetukavādi, an issarakāraṇavādi, a pubbekatavādi, an ucchedavādi, and a khattavijjavādi. The doctrines maintained by these five are stated in versified form, and are in part paraphrases of the Sāmañña-phala Sutta passages which we have quoted. At the conclusion of the story the five ministers are stated to have been previous incarnations of Pūraṇa, Makkhali, Pakudha, Ajita, and Nigaṇṭha. Thus, assuming that the doctrines were thought to have been held in the order named, the fatalist teaching ascribed in the Sāmañña-phala Sutta to Makkhali is here attributed to Pūraṇa; Makkhali himself becomes a theist²; Pakudha maintains an obscure doctrine which seems to approximate to the orthodox theory of karma³; Ajita upholds materialism, as in the Sāmañña-phala Sutta reference; while Nigaṇṭha, in fact the apostle of ahiṃsā, is here the teacher of a Macchiavellian doctrine, resembling the antinomianism of Pūraṇa, as described in the Sutta passage.⁴